Why King might run for president

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Presidential hopefuls don’t typically open their sales pitch by promoting policies that voters overwhelmingly oppose or by knocking their own party almost as much as the other one.

Peter King is not your typical presidential hopeful.

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The brash Republican congressman from Long Island has been making the rounds in New Hampshire, pressing for military action in Syria — which about one in three Americans support — and warning against growing isolationist sentiment at home, symbolized by the rise of libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). At stops around the state last weekend, King charged that President Barack Obama’s approach “is weakening the office of the president of the United States” and that America’s foes “sense weakness; they sense appeasement; they sense accommodation.”

“Whether it’s me or anyone else in the Republican Party who runs, I hope we run on having strong national defense and also carrying the banner high,” he said on the stump. “Waving the banner of the United States of America and realizing that whatever other countries may do or whatever complaints they may have, no one has done more for freedom than the United States. But most of all, Americans need to have faith in their leader that he’s not going to back down when things get tough.”

But King was unsparing about his own party, too, saying he’s gravely concerned that Republicans are starting to project the same image of timidity in international affairs that has plagued Democrats over the years.

“He’s a knee-jerk isolationist,” King said of Paul in a separate interview. “Just the level of his arguments — ‘build bridges in the U.S. rather than Afghanistan’ — has superficial appeal. But what does that mean? Does he consider, analyze — what happens when we withdraw?”

No one is about to put King in the top tier of GOP 2016 hopefuls. As a single House member from liberal New York, he’d be handicapped in the race for money and exposure against the Chris Christies or Pauls of the GOP. His vocal support for stricter gun control laws would be tough to explain to conservative primary voters, as would his criticism of tea party lawmakers who “equate Obamacare with military action,” as he put it, because they both involve government spending.

And his keen focus on national security when poll after poll indicates the country has turned inward after a dozen years of war isn’t the kind of message likely to fire up the Republican faithful.

But for King, that message is the point. His main motivation is unmistakable: pushing back against what he sees as a “dangerous” strain of isolationism that’s gaining strength in the GOP. Trips to early states like New Hampshire make him not just a “Republican congressman” in the media but also a “potential 2016 candidate” — giving him a bigger megaphone to drive his message.

In nearly a one-hour conversation with POLITICO in New Hampshire ahead of two campaign stops, King went so far as to say that the rise of anti-war voices in the GOP threatens to make Democrats the better option for voters who want a strong national defense.

“I want to make sure our alternative is better than theirs,” King, 69, said, adding that he’s “seriously” looking at a run but hasn’t decided yet. “If I’m going to be criticizing the Obama policies, and then we end up nominating someone whose policies I think are more dangerous than [Obama’s], we’ve failed as Republicans.”

That was a direct swipe at Paul, who is leading the GOP opposition to bombing Syria and drew enormous attention earlier this year with his filibuster against the use of drones on American soil. King added that he didn’t mean “dangerous in an evil way” but “dangerous if we let down our defenses.”

“I have more of an immediate responsibility because Rand Paul is in my party,” King said. “President Obama was elected; he’s entitled to run his foreign policy as commander in chief. What would be reassuring to me is knowing we have a real alternative for that coming up in 2016. But the thought that we have [something] worse than the Obama policy coming up.”

Paul has described himself as a “realist, not a neoconservative or an isolationist.” His office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“It’s the tax-and-spend liberal wing of the Republican Party,” Paul said in late July, responding on CNN to King charging that he was on the “fringe.” “They’re all for blowing up stuff; they’re all for getting involved in wars; but they’re not too concerned with fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets.”

On the stump in this first-in-the-nation primary state, King kept the emphasis on the president, but the basic foreign policy focus was the same. In Wolfeboro, King addressed a lobster bake sponsored by the Carroll County Republican Committee. He unpacked his position on Syria in front of dozens of polo- and sweater-sporting Republicans — many with white hair — as they nibbled on seafood, corn and coleslaw.